


Know this, my Wizard

by Anonymous



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Familiars, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25093057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Frumpkin muses about his history with Caleb.Or: A familiar's unspoken thoughts about his wizard.
Relationships: Frumpkin & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 20
Kudos: 132
Collections: Anonymous





	Know this, my Wizard

I felt when you first reached out to me.

It wasn’t an immediate thing, as you know, it took a little while but I like to think that the second the spell was initiated, I knew it was happening. That I was going to be taken from the plane I called my home to come to yours and aid you. Though uncertainty lay in front of me, I felt no fear. No worry. I felt anticipation and curiosity. I couldn’t wait to find out what you’d be like.

I cared not for whether your people thought you good or evil, that was all the same to me. But a part of me hoped that you’d treat me with kindness.

You wished me in the shape of a cat so that’s what I became.

And then an instantaneous sensation shot through my body and I appeared on your plane. Right in front of you.

I saw you for the first time. My wizard. Out of all the arcanely touched souls, you were chosen for me. And I was chosen for you.

I could tell at a glance from your appearance and surroundings that you were neither a curious student, nor a reclused mage. But I thought to see elements of both in you. It dawned on me in that moment that I was not bound for a quiet life inside a place of study. Not for a while, at least.

Your eyes were so wide as you looked at me and that shock was something I’d only later learn to understand. You stared like I was a miracle, not the very thing you summoned.

“Hallo.” Was the first word you ever offered me. And I understood, though I didn’t speak your language, that it was a greeting.

Carefully and slowly, you extended your hand to me like one might for a stray. And you waited. You didn’t order me to come to you, though you could have. No words uttered, I understood your wish and I followed it.

Your hand smelled like dirt and ash and magic and somehow it was home.

You were trembling when I bumped my head into your palm - like a lost cat might - but I could tell that I hadn’t displeased you. No, you looked at me like that small connection we had was something fragile. Like you expected me to turn and run from you. But I approached, feeling where my new place was. You picked me up after a moment of quiet consideration and enveloped me in your arms. I felt your heartbeat and the shiver running through your body and the second thing I ever heard from you was a small broken sound.

“I’m Bren.” You whispered to me like it was a secret and it was the first of many things I would hear you call yourself.

You sobbed and though I didn’t understand your pain, yet, I felt it. Whether that was a thing of our arcane bond or sympathy, I could not tell you.

“I will call you Frumpkin, is that okay?” You asked and you looked at me as though I wouldn’t have accepted any name from you. I gave you a small sound that I hoped you understood as approval. I saw you smile and it was a brittle thing.

You held me a little longer that day, clinging as though I might vanish again. As though it was me who was in control, not you.

-

You tested the limits of our bond quite quickly after that and I liked to explore them, too.

Leaping across rooftops in that town you had chosen, I saw many small and private things, happenstance of homes and alleys. You’d test my abilities, seeing those secrets through my eyes, too. I could feel your presence, though I could not see you. I acted with your words in my ear and turned around when I could no longer hear them.

You were methodical – I learned that fast. And quick to develop plans and ideas. You’d test a skill of mine and then explain something about it to me. I don’t know whether you thought I was listening or not, but I was. Then you’d send me out to further prod at those limitations of the little spell that connected us. But you never made me endure or suffer in your tests. You were never cruel.

I think I became your obsession for a little bit.

You fed me, though I didn’t need to eat and gave me affection that you didn’t have to give. You knew, I’m sure, that I was bound to you by arcane words, not by your fondness of me. Not that I would have rejected your affectionate touches if I had been able to. I quite liked the attention.

I found that I appreciated traveling with you. Your nomadic way of life allowed me to see a great many things that I would have never seen otherwise. It satisfied a burning curiosity that I hadn’t even known myself to possess.

You asked me to do all sorts of things on our journeys, of course. And a familiar’s position is to cater to those requests. I spied, distracted and explored for you. Then I stole and ran for you. I surrendered my senses to your whims. I hadn’t a choice, but it was never a chore. You must know that what you issued were gentle requests much more than firm commands.

But I was more than something to run your errands and help you with your plans. That much was very clear from how you sometimes held me for hours. In retrospect, it took me a long time to understand why you looked at me like I was a gift. You’d pet my head and talk at me and I hope, truly hope, that you knew that I was paying attention to you. I hung on every word you cared to share. From every ‘good cat’ you offered me to every broken admission you mumbled to me after waking up gasping and panicking.

I cannot know whether I felt each ounce of your pain in those nights, and I do not believe I did, but I felt some of it and I wished each time to have words to give, but I didn’t. You held me and clung to me and I felt your teardrops on my shape. So I did what cats do and purred and it seemed to help somewhat so I purred a little more.

Those nights were frequent occurrences. As were the moments, day or night, when you seemed to leave. Your body was still there, but I could tell that your mind was not. That’s the thing between us, my wizard, and I’m not sure whether you know this but I sense so much about you because of this bond. And I felt, so often, that you were there, but gone. At first I didn’t know where it was that you had left to. I tried to nudge you and sometimes it worked but other times it didn’t. And that was distressing because I was stuck meowing and pawing and nudging you but you were gone. Once or twice, I feared you’d never come back. You did. Always. But a little piece remained gone for hours, I noticed.

It was those times that I wished there was someone who could do more than me when you left like that. But I learned fast, too, that it was just the two of us.

Everyone else was a passing shadow. Unlearned names and forgotten faces. We visited no one, no one spoke to you with familiarity and I understood a little more, day by day, piece by piece, why you had held me so tightly that first day. When you had named me and clung to me like I was a lifeline. And I was glad, the more I learned about you, that my soul found yours. I hurt to think of an alternative world, where I was tethered to you but we never met.

You were so tired. So, so tired. All the time. Weary and worn out and though you gave me smiles they were pained. I told you I listened to every word, well, I heard the way you talked about yourself under your breath. I resented it. Because never once did those words include your smartness or your kindness. But my nudges couldn’t help. Not really.

It wasn’t all bad, of course. I don’t know where we’d be if it had been.

I always found my spot by your side to be comfy, in spite of everything. You insisted on hiding beneath a layer of dirt and I grew to understand this more as I saw you shy away from crowds, clutching me tightly when an interaction with another had been very intense. We slept in alleyways and on the road and maybe, if your fingers had been very quick or a merchant had found me especially distracting, in a tavern that smelled of mud and rotting wood. But none of that really mattered to me. It wasn’t cushy, it was exciting. And somehow, I liked that much more.

What I loved most in those times when it was you and me against a grey backdrop of the world was when you did magic. I think I loved it because you did. Or maybe I just loved the excitement of it all. I know that I came to you because of magic. But I am not made of it, I do not understand it like you do. Every time you made something happen that wasn’t there before or wasn’t supposed to be, even if it was just a flame in your palm, I could not look away. But what stuck with me the most about you doing magic was how you’d turn to me when you succeeded. I sat by your side and you’d look at me like I was there to judge your success. I did whatever I could to show you my interest. And I do think you understood me, because you’d gift me that brittle little smile.

-

It was just you and me for a long time.

Each day we spent together, I discovered a little more about you. I watched you and watched out for you as much as you allowed me. You protected me and I protected you. You saved me many times from being sent to my plane and, though I didn’t know for a while, I think I saved you.

Not because I was a good lookout or distraction. Not because I served you well.

But because when I think about the times you clung to me like you’d fall apart if I vanished, when I think about the things you said about yourself without rebuttal, when I think about you doing all that without at least something living to cling to, I do not know what to picture. Because I tried, I always tried so hard, my wizard, Bren, to be there. To be what you needed as much as I could. To nudge you and nuzzle you and show you that someone cared. You never ordered me to do any of that. I hope you remember this like you remember everything else. You never forced me to show you affection. You never had to.

Those things that weighed on you like boulders were and are too complicated for me to understand. I regret this. Deeply. But perhaps that’s what enabled you to hold me that first day. Your knowledge that I was absolved of judging you. From how you spoke, you were already on trial in front of yourself.

Do you remember when you apologized to me one night?

You must, right? You don’t forget things, not normally, I don’t think.

It had been a terrible day. Too many people, too many unpleasant confrontations and far too little food or sleep. Not one brittle smile. That night you held me and you apologized and sobbed. You told me how sorry you were that I was stuck with you. You said you regretted so deeply that I didn’t get a better wizard. That you hoped that I understood how deeply, truly, absolutely sorry you were to be such a poor excuse of an arcanist, a companion, a person.

And you told me that you wanted to send me home forever so that I wasn’t stuck with something like you but that you, selfishly and cowardly, couldn’t. That you couldn’t send me away even if I deserved better than you. Those words were acidic and full of pain and resentment.

And I remember, clearly, wondering how my smart wizard could be such a fool. I hurt for you and hoped that maybe if I stayed close enough you would understand that I had some wit in me. That my affections for you were not asked for but freely given. And that you sending me away forever was the greatest threat you could have ever made me.

That night I wished, more than ever before, that you would find someone who could put into words what I thought of you. What I knew you to be that you were so blind to.

And that I had, indeed, been blissfully tethered to a wizard who was kind.

-

I wasn’t surprised to be called into a little cell.

It wasn’t the first time you were in one of them, so it wasn’t my first, either. I don’t like the feeling of being caged – who does? - but as long as I could offer you some comfort I would be there.

What was unexpected was the smaller green one that you spoke to in hushed tones. You introduced me like an old friend, something that filled me with pride. I learned that she was Nott and that you had decided to make your escape with her. I wasn’t fond of the idea. Not immediately. I worried for you, you see. We had been dodging strangers wherever we had gone for a long time.

But you had chosen her as a partner for your escape and if it set you free, I would accept it. I, of course, had my eye on her as much as I could. It wasn’t as though I had a choice but to comply with your plan, but I am certain you knew my reluctance well enough. That was something you never had to learn in the time I’ve known you. This shape I took graced me with some innate knowledge of how a feline acts and you were always able to pick up on those tells. You told me at some point why that was. I didn’t mind that I had taken the shape of your childhood friend. I felt sad for your loss.

‘Caleb’ is what Nott called you and I understood. After all those nights sitting on your chest with a rumbling purr, listening to your pain and distress without the ability to do much to help, after all the names you’d called yourself in different towns and taverns and prisons, I understood why she didn’t call you ‘Bren’.

I fetched you the keys you asked me to get and I believe I may have earned Nott’s approval with them.

Unfortunately, you sent me away again, telling me it was for my best. I knew that to be true, you had always sought out what you deemed to be best for me. Even if ‘my best’ in your eyes were very often things that were more suited for an actual cat. I had heard you get upset when someone threatened or hurt me. Though my ‘death’ inconveniences you more than me, you used to hold me after I almost ‘died’ like I might have been upset. I never was, but I never resisted your touch, either.

When I was allowed to join you again you were outside somewhere. The piece of civilization once again left behind and a distant memory on the horizon. Nott was still there with you, seeming as glad and relieved as anyone in her and your situation may have been. She was still there with us when you lit a campfire that evening. And when you settled down for the night.

I watched her while you slept. You didn’t trust her. Not then. So neither did I. I felt the mistrust as it took you even longer to find rest than usual. I never left your side. Didn’t look away for a second. I think she may have found me deeply unsettling. It is another night I remember with absolute clarity. I was on edge, tensing whenever she moved. Ready to jump, ready to wake you, ready to protect you.

But she never attacked. She told me that she wouldn’t, you know. While you were asleep. As she sat there, she asked me whether I would somehow relay to you what she told me. I gave no indication either way. I don’t think she would have understood my tell, but I mostly tried not to share anything because you hadn’t done so. Still, she quietly laid it out for me. How she had no intention of hurting you. But I didn’t trust it because you didn’t trust it, yet. I stayed wary.

I started to change my mind when she was staying true to her promise a week later. That week, however, was troubling. Whenever you sent me away I felt anxious. I worried that I would feel our tether break with your death. It wasn’t fear for where I would go if that happened, but fear that it would happen, at all. But it didn’t. I always got to return, rub my side against your legs and run in eights around them until you picked me up.

The moment came when I realized – maybe because you realized it, too – that Nott was less of a temporary addition to our team than once thought. It had been a couple of weeks of shared travel at that point. You had traded some information with her, though never anything that cut too deep. Never anything close to what made you wake up with a gasp. She never pushed you to tell her things, which I know you appreciated.

I feared, though briefly, that I was becoming superfluous to you. It happened when you showed her magic and instead of my weak attempts at showing interest, she spoke back to you with curiosity and you could share some of your thoughts. She was becoming a good companion. And you had always treated me as a companion first and a servant second. You must forgive this passing jealousy, please, I hadn’t learned to co-exist with someone other than you at the time. The fear passed quickly, though, as you still called me to you. As you still held me and carried me around your neck.

It would have done my growing faith in Nott some good for her to _not_ try to eat me.

But as I sat there, on my home plane, waiting to be returned, all I thought about was whether she had gotten a taste at all before I ceased to be. I wondered, too, then, whether you had ever explained to her how my existence functioned and that I was not, in fact, a very _very_ well-trained cat. You must have, right? … Right?

I know that it took you a while to get everything in order for my ‘revival’ and, really, the wait was the most annoying part for me. The uncertainty. Of whether and how and when I would be back.

I was more guarded around her after that. But you were mostly unbothered by the incident. You didn’t resent her for ‘eating’ me. That’s how I knew that she was special to you. I think you hadn’t known that back then, yet.

-

So it was the three of us. My wizard, his Goblin friend and me.

I grew to like her a lot. Mostly because of how she affected you. You talked regularly to a _person_. Now it seems like such an odd thing to point out but there was a time, you must remember it well, when that was a huge accomplishment. I even heard you laugh around her. It was quiet and broken and reserved, like most things you did. But it happened. The moment when I stopped watching her with wary eyes, ready to pounce, came easily and I accepted it.

You told me several times, when she wasn’t there to hear, that your relationship with her was beneficial. It was easier to survive that way. That was undoubtedly true, but I fear you believed that to be the extent of it for much longer than I did. You grew to like the company she offered. Trading words, ideas, often of little depth. But words and ideas nonetheless. You even started coming up with schemes to earn a meal and named them. I wish I could say that you must have noticed the beginnings of your care for her when you were excusing that troublesome thing you both called ‘itch’, but you seemed oblivious to it for a good while longer.

So I’m certain that I noticed her caring about you long before you did, too. Much longer, still, before you would even begin to accept such a thing. It was evident, I felt. Do not take offense to that, you wished me to take the shape of something curious by nature. Though, I saw things you didn’t in general. Things that she hid from you deliberately. Putting more food on your plate when you turned away, slipping an extra coin in your pocket when you were deeply invested in a book. I’m sorry to say I’ve betrayed you several times. But she winked at me conspiratorially as she gave you those little pieces of care. And I was not fool enough to interfere with that. I say I’m sorry, but I bear no regrets. You needed the extra food and you know you did.

I was not partial to her second attempt to eat me, though.

-

One day you summoned me to appear on a table in a small tavern in front of a whole group of people.

At the time I had no idea about the importance they would come to carry. You were clueless about that too. You didn’t really expect them to influence you, at all. But sometimes, dearest wizard, you have to be wrong.

I was suspicious of all of them at first. Because you were. One humanoid companion did not make you a socialite. You still aren’t. A socialite, I mean. I’m glad, for I would not like to weave through crowds as much as I appreciate curling up with you while you read for hours.

They were a strange bunch. You felt this too. I could sense part of you recoiling around them. I kept my eye on them for you while I could. But it proved to be a worry as unnecessary as it had been with Nott. Some of them were loud and colorful, others were more quiet and reserved and it was easy to tell which ones you were more skeptical of. All of them were a splash of color against that grey backdrop that had been our world. Maybe that’s what you were in need of at the time. And what made you stay and follow them in spite of all your inhibitions.

I could feel you extend that tenuous trust, at least enough of it to warrant beginning to travel with this group. You called them crazy with dry humor and yourself crazy in earnest and you decided to give it a shot. I don’t think you knew that this chance given to odd strangers was the door to something larger.

The path that laid in front of you, I’m sure, was shaped much different from how you expected it.

-

It probably was a sensible choice to send me away more often after that. Don’t misunderstand, I realize that I still got to accompany you very frequently. But it was comparatively more absence nonetheless.

Your life before meeting this group of people hadn’t been safe, by any means – narrow escapes and troublesome escapades were as commonplace as an evening meal for others – but suddenly it was full of battle and bloodshed.

So you banishing me made sense. But I didn’t have to like it because of that. I can tell some things about your state of being through our arcane bond even while I’m not at your side. But I never knew enough. It was no comfort to hear your new companions refer to you as ‘squishy’, among other things, while I was draped around your neck. There was not much I could have done in combat to make a difference, of course, but I was and am a curious being and couldn’t stand not knowing how you fared. But it was fine. It had to be.

Being shot or kicked to find myself back on my home plane was the alternative, after all.

I don’t mind that in general. Again, my ‘death’ is much more trouble for you than it is for me. But I know it upsets you and that’s what I dislike about it. It vanished over time, I believe, that disbelief in your eyes when I re-appeared once you had completed the ritual. Like you hadn’t been sure that I would come back. Like you had, at least in part, expected me to resist the spell that called me to your side.

Why would I ever?

-

You started to ask me to go over to others more frequently. To be pet and held and to curl up in their lap. The way I did for you. It felt like I was befriending them myself through those actions so part of me liked the prospect. It is such an odd and endearing thing, the joy that people on your plane feel at the sight of a cat. Or something that looks like a cat.

I learned a lot, I think, about them, by how they reacted to my proximity and how they approached me. Or, maybe that is wishful thinking and all I learned were their opinions on cats. You certainly seemed to judge people, at least on some level, by how they treated me. At least you didn’t take well to those that would abuse me.

So I let myself be pet and passed around at your whim, which was fine, and I felt like I was conveying messages about you to them without realizing their meaning myself. I grew to like them more, just like you did, but there was a certain comfort to coming back over to you or reappearing on your shoulders or in your arms or beside your legs. That was and is my place after all. And it was reassuring to be returned to it.

When you did send me around to receive and distribute affections, I did appreciate when those were accepted with joy rather than with reluctance. Even if that happiness was small and subdued. I think you could tell that I liked your big, tall pale friend a lot. Quiet admiration always trumped loud and volatile joy. That’s not very Fey of me, is it? Oh well.

You did say more than once that I was a cat.

And not as a joke, though you knew it to be untrue. But you even defended that claim when someone questioned it and, weirdly, I came to take a certain level of pride in the form that you summoned me in.

It’s not weird, I don’t think, at least, to grow accustomed to a shape one has spent multiple years in. So when you said I was a cat, like any other cat, except maybe better, sometimes, it rang true in the strangest way. I’m Fey. You know this. The cat is but a shape. But I think, if I may venture a guess, that when you burned that incense and called upon me, that what you _needed_ was a cat.

Of course, you shaped me into different things, with different abilities. To let me fly and swim and climb. It was a nice change of pace and certainly interesting to move differently, behave differently and just be something else for a while. But in those forms I learned that, while suitable like any other body, I am, deep down, your cat.

What a strange thing.

-

We saw so much together, you and I and those other Nein that aren’t nine.

The Feywild, dear wizard, as you surely know, for knowledge is the breath in your lungs as much as air, is quite different from your home. And I feel it lacks the… variety that we encountered on your plane.

You took me to tunnels and huge pieces of civilization, to the coast, to sea and on the road, through rain and sunshine and snow, to a city where the sun never came. I curled up in your coat, walked around your legs and rested around your neck. I continued to spy and distract and explore at your whim. But still, it never was a chore. I was happy when I could do what I had been summoned to do and grateful that you used my abilities.

I liked these travels, where exploration wasn’t just about survival. Where you had a number of people to trade words with and who would say back to you what I had been thinking for years. Others were no longer unlearned names and forgotten faces, either. They were allies, saved lives, enemies.

We met other wizards, too. People who must have thrived on magic like you did. And there was that spark of mutual understanding that I had seen in you when Nott had first taken interest in your craft. You reached out that broken, strained trust to one of them and part of me wishes it hadn’t been my eyes you saw betrayal through. I hurt with you, though you maybe didn’t feel it. I always did. Don’t think that was a burden on me, it is the nature of our bond. Though maybe it was a little more than that.

Your side had long since become a precious and coveted position for me. Not just one I was bound to by a spell, but one that I would seek out if given the choice. And from that position I appreciated the strange little group that had already become a very permanent addition to your life. Or at least, one that you would never forget.

-

I know that you were someone else, once. Before you called on me, a long time before then, I think.

The intricacies of this are lost on me, but I have learned that you were quite different. I do not know who this person was and whether you are still very much like him or not. Though I don’t think you are. And I have wondered, once or twice, whether, had you called out back then, as that different person, I had still been the one to answer that call. And whether I would have come to love you the same way.

I cannot really think that you are the same as you had been. For I’ve learned that this other, disappeared you was someone who was unkind.

-

From the humble viewpoint of a familiar, I think you’ve grown so much.

And not only because your magic is grander, brighter, stronger with each spell cast. But also because your smiles are no longer as brittle and because you’ve shed the dirt that disguised you.

It warms me that you still return to me, little as the spell that produced me must seem to you.

You still cling to me with shaking breath sometimes, but I think less frequently than you used to. And you still look at me with reverence, like I’m a miraculous gift. Always. But not like I’m the only thing that keeps you afloat. I’m not and I’m grateful for it.

I like this family, this home, that you’ve built around yourself. And I know with every bit of sense that was granted me, Fey being that I am, that you care for them deeply. I told you, didn’t I? That we were bound, that I know your heart. Some of it, at least. But even if I weren’t tethered to you by magic, but instead were a stray you had taken in, I would still see the smiles and the touching, the closeness, the laughs, the conversations. The things, once great obstacles to you, slowly melting into little normalcies.

Is it wrong to feel proud of your wizard?

I don’t contemplate the wrongness of something very often. And I have never given much thought to how other familiars spend their lives or regard their arcanists. Not beyond a superficial interest, at least. But do they marvel how their wizards grow and learn and evolve?

Do they feel loved and cherished when their wizards turn back to them, still, after all that time?

I cannot know.

But I do not mind, either way. If it is commonplace or if I’m an oddity in that regard, I cannot bring myself to sincerely care. I appreciate the way things are and am once more glad you asked me to be a cat. Since picking me up and petting and cradling me seem to be habits that you will never tire of.

-

One day, my wizard, you will die. And if you will have kept me around to see those final breaths, to rest on your rising and falling chest a final time, I will then return to my former home.

That thought pains me so I try to avoid it.

But this is an inevitability and you know this, too. After all, you aren’t the type to seek out immortality. You’re too wary of the consequences, for one, I think. That is not to say that you don’t have grand, possibly world shattering plans in a different way. And I will love to see them evolve along with you.

But there will be a final time you pet me, the last time you hear me purr, a last reverent look. I do hope it will be peaceful. I think you should be granted that, at least. I hope it won’t be alone, though if you’ll have no one else, you’ll always have me, watching over you until that final breath is drawn.

I know where you believe you will go after, what destination awaits your soul.

And I think, small familiar that I am, that you are wrong.

Know this, my wizard. If there is one thing, one bit of knowledge I could give to you, I wish it to be this. Wherever your immortal soul resides, mine will always be irreversibly and fully bound to it. And not by force or magic, but by will.

Out of all the souls, you were chosen for me. And I was chosen for you.

And I would never choose another.

**Author's Note:**

> In which I blatantly disregard some things about familiars.
> 
> This idea has been on my mind for a bit and I decided to just run with it.
> 
> Comments & Kudos are appreciated! Say hi on tumblr if you like: https://mysticalraz.tumblr.com/


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